Path: utzoo!utgpu!utstat!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!ames!xanth!mcnc!rti!xyzzy!agarn!throopw From: throopw@agarn.dg.com (Wayne A. Throop) Newsgroups: comp.ai Subject: Re: Where might CR understanding come from (if it exists) Message-ID: <4274@xyzzy.UUCP> Date: 20 Mar 89 19:07:54 GMT References: <7847@polya.Stanford.EDU> Sender: usenet@xyzzy.UUCP Lines: 41 > harnad@elbereth.rutgers.edu (Stevan Harnad) > [..it is not the case that..] > the attribute of being able to manipulate Chinese > symbols (even under the counterfactual hypothesis that one can > manipulate them well enough to pass the LTT) the same as the attribute > of being able to understand Chinese symbols. Why (for those who thought > it might have been)? One reason is Searle's Chinese Room Argument. More like "Chinese Room Anecdote". Given that its sole force of argument is gained by assuming its concluson by appeal to anthropomorphism, there are many people who don't find it convincing. Not that I think any near descendant of "Doctor" or other toys should be thought of as posessing understanding. Just that Searle has failed to prove (or even show reason) that a much more distant and complicated descendant should not be thought of in this way. > (Here and in my papers I've given several others, including the > "symbol-grounding problem.") And since the symbols of a symbol crunching system are every bit as well grounded as those humans use (at least potentially), this reason is somewhat less than convincing also. ( Note: I don't contend that they are as well grounded by the criteria Steve Harnad would like to use. I just think that some irrelevant criteria are snuck in there. ) > [...] thinking is not just symbol crunching. Q.E.D. (R.I.P.) And claiming that these anecdotes constitute "proof" of anything at all, especially in the course of pursuing "argument by insult and intimidation" combined with "argument by emphatic assertion" is (need I say it?) equally unconvincing. -- "Who would be fighting with the weather like this?" "Only a lunatic." "So you think D'Artagnian is involved?" --- Porthos, Athos, and Aramis. -- Wayne Throop !mcnc!rti!xyzzy!throopw